BCC have announced that work to reopen Drummond Road to two-way through traffic will commence on 17th October 2011 starting with the Ashley Road junction followed by the City Road junction roughly three weeks later. There is an estimated completion time of six weeks overall subject to weather conditions or other delays. St Pauls Unlimited have just released full details of the scheme which can be downloaded here: Drummond Road Traffic Scheme The scheme is met with mixed feelings by residents ranging from a few strong objections to concerns about traffic flows and emergency vehicle accessibility though, overall, opinions are mostly positive. The overall objective has always been to design out anti-social behaviour and improve accessibility, especially for the emergency services and the effectiveness with which those aims are met will be monitored for the first six months.

Drummond Road Improvements are currently going through the finer details of the scheme and further information for consideration may be announced here shortly. Generally, however, at this very late stage, all of the details are fully finalised and there will be no changes to existing plans possible.

Opening up Drummond Road

Below are a number of seminal documents written by SPUCP which can be directly downloaded for reference in relation to this project:

1. Initial Consultation Survey Results
2. Letter to residents re Initial Consultation Results
3. Final Consultation Results Report
4. Letter to Residents re Final Consultation
5. Residents update letter May 2011
6. Final works announcement

Despite having been closed down under an Anti-Social Behaviour Order in December 2009, several residents have reported that the Shady Grove is now open again and already starting to create further nuisance in our community. The Shady Grove has a long and infamous history as an illegal, all-night drinking venue unregulated by any Authority.

Although many suspected this would happen, it still comes as a shock and residents are fearing the worst following decades of having to suffer from extreme forms of anti-social behaviour which include fatal stabbings amongst many other abuses.

Residents report that the gated alleyway at the north end of Drummond Road behind Super Mashriq supermarket, now permanently open after having been kept locked since this venue was closed, is already being used for drug dealing again. This alleyway allows users of the Shady Grove to enter and leave via the rear of the building. Users of the venue are also seen to be entering and leaving via the front situated in Ashley Road throughout the night even during weekdays.

The Shady Grove was recently refurbished under the auspices of its’ intended use as a bed and breakfast which, as locals familiar with Ajax’s endless games with the Authorities correctly suspected, is actually just another scheme he has devised to allow him to reopen it as the illegal drinking establishment it always has been. With de facto residential status now apparently established, it is relatively easy for Ajax to claim that parties there are simply private affairs.

Drummond Road Improvements will be campaigning hard to get the Shady Grove closed down again.

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Everyone will know by now via local consultations organised by St Pauls Unlimited Community Partnership that Drummond Road will be opened up to through traffic and we can now confirm that will happen in approximately October or November this year following today’s discussions with Bristol City Council.

It has come as somewhat of a surprise, however, that Drummond Road will be opened up to two-way traffic between Ashley Road and City Road when most residents understood that there would be a one-way traffic scheme in place. Local residents are concerned that Drummond Road is simply too narrow to accommodate two-way traffic with, often, insufficient room available for even one-way traffic, especially emergency vehicles as large as a rigid chassis fire tender. History shows that fire tenders can be both denied access due to width restrictions as well as unable to leave swiftly when called elsewhere for emergency responses.

Additionally, residents are concerned that available car parking spaces are taken up by employees of local businesses. So far, there is no indication that a Resident’s Parking Scheme will be set in place nor corner parking restrictions to alleviate these issues. Each of these considerations will require additional funding as well as local consultation before they can be brought about, yet they remain on the resident’s agenda to resolve.

To put funding considerations into perspective, the “Ist stage” BCC is committed to will cost approximately £130,000, just to open the road up to through traffic. A large part of that is attributable to legal process expenses. Should a one-way traffic flow scheme be preferred, the additional cost is merely £5-10,000 maximum with basic signage, hardly significant. In fact this additional sum equates to roughly just over 10% of the available cost allocation which one is tempted to think is well within the bounds of any sensible contingency budget anyway. As the road is so obviously unsuitable for two-way traffic, one is bound to ask why such a perfunctory scheme is planned in the first place?

There being no economies of scale in BCC having to return on site to remedy such a myopic quick fix, as will surely be the case, one can but conjecture as to whether BCC are almost resentful at having to spend any money at all and the extent to which we are being seen as anything other than of nuisance value to be ameliorated only by meagre measures and vacuous spin?

Asides from traffic and parking considerations, local residents are accounting for the loss of safe street play opportunities for their children. Sadly, it is hard to imagine how that can be reconciled with the over-riding benefits of opening the road, thus designing out much street crime, in itself, not in the interests of children anyway.

To some extent, that can be ameliorated by recently announced BCC schemes to enable local residents to apply for their roads to be closed several times a year so that children can play freely. With a small amount of local organisation, such days could prove to be very popular. Drummond Road Improvements is looking into this prospect more deeply as we write and will update site users when more details are known.

We are genuinely delighted to have received RedRat Hosting’s Community Website of the Year Award (2010)

It is gratifying to think that even the humblest of efforts are so well received. Thank you for this but, most of all, for all your help in so many ways.

It has to be said that our campaign success is largely attributable to the help that RedRat Hosting has given to us from our inception.

As well as having provided outstanding, free web hosting services so that our community’s site is always up and running, blazingly fast with constant support, they have gone the extra mile by pro-actively working with us to realise our campaign objectives through their in-depth knowledge of social media and how to leverage it to maximum effect.

There is no doubt that the key to our success in engaging with and promoting  beneficially to our target audience has been made possible by the constant encouragement and support beyond any reasonable expectations that RedRat Hosting have provided.

New meaning to new year

We did it! The Police issued a Summons for a Hearing on 22nd December and the Shady Grove has since been closed. Congratulations and thanks to everybody who supported our campaign and played an active role. Thank you especially to Avon & Somerset Police. Well done.The resulting peace and quiet at night ever since the Shady Grove was closed on 2nd December proves that we were right all along in saying that this was the sole cause of our misery.

We must never allow this club to be opened again.

Historically, though, the Shady Grove has been know to just unilaterally re-open after a cooling off period when previously closed down. However, the last closure was performed under the Licensing Act whilst this one is performed under the Anti Social Behaviour Act 2003. Will that make a difference?

Who knows really? But, in our favour is the strong possibility of the Police simply moving in and enforcing the Closure Order if it is breached so we may be fortunate this time around.

Another favourable possibility is the recent discovery that the owner of the Shady Grove has applied for Planning Permission from BCC to convert it into living accommodation.

Good you say? Well, maybe not. Another hostel has been mention as a suggested use for the building so we need to be vigilent in making our views heard before the application is considered. We’ll leave that until first thing in 2010.

Happy New Year in the meantime. Enjoy!

Text of introductory email

Please use this if you like to introduce our Campaign to new people who you think should see it.

Hello friends.

Drummond Road Improvements seeks your support

This is to let you know that we have launched a new community web site to address the horrific anti-social behaviour problems  that we experience in our street mainly due to the unlicensed ‘Shady Grove’ drinking club remaining open and continued street dealing. Other factors also contribute and are being explored, but these are the main ones.

Our main web site http://drummondroad.org.uk is at the centre of our new Campaign for Peace & Positive Change and supported by a further five other sites leveraging promotional & community building opportunities offered by seminal social media sites, Facebook and Twitter so far, Google Maps for our interactive tour of the hotspot area and the FixMyStreet site. Other mainstream media will soon be receiving our Press Releases.

Two main issues

New content is being added to the main site at a fair pace and forthcoming new articles will cover our two main issues in depth:

• Anti-social behaviour
• Rubbish

Dynamic editorial content

As our only aim is to take positive action to improve our social and built environment, other articles will focus attention on identifying and examining all of the contributing factors in detail to inform our proposals for solutions, involve people in them and promote our interests to generate support with appropriate forward impetus.

Developing Campaign resources

To this end, we will be adding many forms of research material including links to other sites and promotional collateral for our Campaign such as posters, stickers, etc. Other resources available for download will be standard email and correspondence templates that supporters can make use of and a list of all the key people to lobby or contact with any concerns.

Our new Campaign poster is now available for distribution and will be displayed prominently at strategic locations around the area, including three in Drummond Road itself, as well as ad hoc in people’s windows, etc. (A4 version attached)

On-line Petitions

On our main site users are able to sign our on-line Petitions and, common to all sites, may leave comments as discussions on the key subjects proceeds. The three active Petitions currently available are as follows:

• Shut down the unlicensed ‘Shady Grove’ drinking club
• Open up Drummond Road to through traffic
• Improved area Policing

Each of the Petitions has been signed already with the ‘Shady Grove’ one being most popular. Existing signatories include residents and friends & family of residents but, as the momentum of our Campaign builds, we anticipate other signatures from Landlords, Stakeholders and other professionals to be added, too.

Building support

Above all, we realise that solutions will not magically appear and that we have to work hard to build support for our Campaign for Peace & Positive Change from within the community itself and from amongst others with vested interests here, either family, friends or professionals and all the various stakeholders.

We need your support, too

Thank you for taking the time to read this and we very much hope that you will appreciate the benefits of what we are trying to bring about and also that our needs are serious and urgent. Please join in and support our Campaign for Peace & Positive Change here in any way you can.

Best wishes,

Drummond Road Improvements

PS: Please pass this on

Ideal for windows & notice boards

Our new A4 poster for our ‘Campaign for Peace and Positive Change’ has now been released and is available for download here.

Click the image below to download DRI_Poster.zip file. Size: 80.9 KB (82,818 Bytes)

Campaign for Peace & Positive Change poster

Drummond Road Improvements’ Campaign for Peace & Positive Change on Facebook has now made it to the number one position for the Google search term, ‘Drummond Road‘ and our main site already ranks 6th on the first page. Notably, our Twitter site has also generated a good deal of support.

This is an amasing result since there has only been very minor publicity work undertaken so far with by way the biggest portion of our overall media strategy yet to roll out. The use of supplementary social media sites to promote the Drummond Road Improvements’ main site has certainly paid off and already gathered a steady stream of new support for our Campaign.

Our Facebook page has provided an impressive 45% of all referrals to our main site.

Our new poster will soon be distributed and, if early signs of its’ likely effect are a reliable indicator, this poster alone will generate a huge level of publicity.

The on-line Petitions have proved to be very popular with new sign ups occurring every day. Of the three available, most signed is the Shady Grove Petition, currently over three times subscribed compared to the next most popular Petition, to open up Drummond Road to through traffic.

Our new Campaign poster is now available and starting to appear throughout the area. Each home in Drummond Road will shortly receive an A4 copy of it, beautifully printed on card. Residents can display it in their windows and then frame it later as a ‘credible’ social artefact that was actually used during our Campaign to help change our part of St Pauls for the better.

The more that are displayed, the more hope will spread, uplifting the community and engendering respect. We appreciate you displaying yours. If you are unable to display it yourself, please try and have it displayed somewhere else locally or just keep it a symbol of good things happening in our neighbourhood.

We, the residents of Drummond Road in St Pauls, are still waiting for Bristol City Council to take appropriate action after a staggering seven years of campaigning since early in March 2003 for even respite from anti-social behaviour in our street by customers of the unlicensed ‘Shady Grove’ drinking club & street dealing. BCC ‘strategies’  for ‘containing’ ‘displacement’ at our expense are not in our interests and ruining our lives.

We are determined to rid ourselves of the problems we face and ask Bristol City Council to listen, accept responsibility and take appropriate action before more damage is done which could easily mean more people being killed here. The damage already done to the lives of residents here is simply massive and cannot be endured any longer. The children who live here  are severely at risk by absorbing daily psychological abuse from disrespectful users of this street. We will no longer tolerate this.

Tired of being ignored and overlooked by Bristol City Council, Drummond Road Improvements, is rolling out a massive publicity drive leveraging major social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Twub as well as Google Maps and FixMyStreet as part of an all out drive for Peace & Positive Change. Local press will also receive our publicity material.

At the centre of our campaign strategy is this web site which features on-line Petitions that our supporters can sign anonymously without fear.

It is primarily the disrespectful & anti-social behaviour of non-resident users of Drummond Road coming into conflict with the interests of the residents who live here that we wish to put an end to.  It is  making our lives a daily misery, especially for our children and elderly about whose welfare many people are extremely concerned.

Especially so at weekends, though throughout the week, customers of the unlicensed Shady Grove ‘blues’ drinking club ‘contained’ within our community remain a relentless, all night nuisance that often continues way into the daytimes. The presence of street dealers continues, ‘contained’ here, inviting a further stream of customers into the street whose rowdy and abusive behaviour is not just an incessant nuisance, largely from amongst the inhabitants of the Bail hostels that BCC has also ‘contained’ here. The very nature of behaviour from non-resident users of this street, with shouting and foul language, is profoundly disturbing to us.

So Drummond Road Improvements will certainly be exploring both the nature of these problems and ways in which solutions can be brought about.

It is fully recognised that this is no easy matter since there will always be public use of this road and any solutions considered must factor how the interests of both users and residents alike can benefit from whatever improvements transpire.

Nevertheless, it is assumed  from the outset that accessible and practical solutions do exist, some of which are already on the agendas of all seminal agencies and stakeholders in the area but which need a renewed focus and commitment to bring them to fruition. Drummond Road Improvements is committed to re-energising and re-focusing the collective efforts of all agencies and stakeholders to resolve present difficulties.

From the same perspective, this site will provide all of the information necessary for residents to find out what is being considered, by whom, where and when, to stay abreast of what progress is being made as well as how to get involved to contribute to the whole process.

Only one thing is certain……

Things cannot remain as they are but they will unless we act collectively to bring about the peace and positive change that we need.